the soundtrack to the day you wish you'd had
need to blog properly about recent days – lots going on, but for now, here’s a map of all the states I’ve visited in the US…
create your own visited states map.
and here’s all the countries I’ve been to… bit of a euro-centric bias here…
create your own visited countries map
Soundtrack – Bobby McFerrin, ‘The Voice’.
I’m having an emotional music day… well, two days, actually.
It started last night, with a song called ‘Freedom’ by a band that I think are called ‘The Wrest’ – I’ve just got this one MP3 that I was sent, cos it features the marvellous Julie Lee on vocals. It sounds just like something that would’ve cropped up on a mid-80s Fleetwood Mac album, like a lost last track from Tango In The Night. And it really moves me. It’s eminently hummable, though I’ve not really listened to the words in any great detail. Part of it is just Julie’s voice – she’s in that category with singers like Michael McDonald and Joanne Hogg where it doesn’t matter what they sing, it works for me.
After that I was listening to Kris Delmhorst’s ‘Songs For A Hurricane’ album, which is just perfect. It just gets better with every listen. Some amazing lyrics, beautiful metaphors, and another really great moving voice.
Today I ratcheted up the emotional content, and in the car on the way to Birmingham was listening to ‘Diesel and Dust’ by Midnight Oil. Now, the Oils are from that brand of serious 80s rockers who had a message and no sex appeal – a combination that would see them disappear without trace were they to emerge now, but as a reaction to the rancidness of yuppy life in the 80s, such bands appeared all over the place (remember U2 before the Anton Corbijn make-over?)
‘Beds Are Burning’ by Midnight Oil is one of the most spine-tinglingest top 10 hits ever – can you imagine a song about paying reparations to Australia’s aboriginal people making it into the charts now? Pete Garratt sang like a cross between Mick Jagger and Henry’s Cat, but packed his odd croaky/whiny voice with so much intent and meaning that it moves me to tears. The rest of the album packs a punch too – ‘Sell My Soul’, ‘Bull-roarer’ – stunning stuff.
And after that, James Taylor Live – it’s hardly news-worthy ‘man moved by James Taylor’ – I guess the only surprise was that I wasn’t wearing a nice wooly jumper at the time. Particularly noticed the lyrics to ‘Slap Leather’ from his ‘New Moon Shine’ album, which are a stab at the materialism of US government policy in the early 90s – not what you’d expect from the writer of some of the greatest relationship songs of all time…
And now, back at home, I’m listening to ‘Now, But Not Yet’ by Andrew Buckton – the launch gig for this album was, I think, the only time I’ve actually cried during a song on stage – Buck’s songs are all about people he knows going through all manner of crises, and some of them were in the crowd for the gig. Hearing him sing these beautiful, poignant, painful songs to the people they were written for was too much for me. It’s time like that that I’m glad I’ve got enough hair to hide behind – I must’ve looked like cousin-it from the Addams Family for the duration of that song.
So it’s moving songs day – join in, what are the songs that really move you? (warning, if you list anything by Whitney or Celine, I’ll be banning your IP from ever viewing this blog again. 😉 )
Soundtrack – Andrew Buckton, ‘Now But Not Yet’.
I occasionally get asked by students what the most important skill I’ve learned since I left college and went professional as a musician is. The answer often surprises them – learning to touch-type. I can’t even begin to imagine how long it would take me to do all my admin/web/email/etc. stuff if I couldn’t touch-type. Even keeping a blog would be unfeasible given the length of time it was take to get any thoughts down on the page.
The method I used was Mavis Beacon’s typing course – it’s only $20, and will save you that much in work-hours in the first three days after you’ve finished the course.
Go on, learn to type properly!
Soundtrack – listening through a load of the old duet sessions that inspired the idea for the Recycle Collective – earlier on it was stuff with BJ Cole, now it’s stuff with Andrew Booker.
The problem of religion.
Jyoti’s ever marvellous and provocative blog has a huge rant on it about the place of religion in politics. His contention is that religion is irrational and bad things are done in the name of God, and has no place being used to define political life…
The weird thing is that, as a believer, I at least partly agree. Not that all spiritual belief is irrational (clearly, that would be a weird thought for someone who aligns them self with the christian faith), but that the use of one’s faith to solely define one’s view of the world can end up in a very totalitarian view of the world.
This paragraph of Jyoti’s is interesting –
Now, the last sentence is clearly an irony, but the strength of opinion expressed in the first half is very close to what I hear from devout thinking people of faith. It’s clearly not raving madness, but it is dogmatic to a slightly scary level.
One of the wonders of post-modernity is that we are now wrestling with the definitions of truth can something be ‘factual’ by untrue, or vice versa? Can two seemingly contradictory accounts of The Way Things Are both be true. We’re now able to wrestle with the concept of abstracting truth from its linguistic strictures, from it’s cultural contexts and examine things for what they point to as much as what they state. We can embrace the concepts of ‘finite’ and ‘infinite’ truth, with infinite truth being essentially unknowable but anything that points to or describes in any way the infinite truth is ‘finite’ truth.
The deconstructionists told us that all language is a metaphor, that words resonate with other words, and within the context of the semantic buildings in which we bring them to life – so the word ‘dad’, on the surface means ‘the guy who impregnated your mother to cause you to be born’ but is on a deeper level going to mean so many different things to different people based on their experiences of father-figures.
However, we still have the tools of history, or literary criticism, of science and biology that can act as boundaries and sign-posts for our discussions, as bridges between our experience and the posited notions of the various religious traditions. So, when Jyoti says,
I don’t believe the stories about Jesus, Thor, Isis, Satan, Apollo, Vishnu, Allah, Buddha, Spiderman or The Great Pumpkin. They’re all lovely stories, and I appreciate the wit and wisdom of the writers but are they true? No. They’re mostly stories written by men to help shape their societies and keep the majority of ordinary people, especially women, oppressed. Apart from Spiderman, of course, that’s very egalitarian.
there’s some pulling apart that needs to take place – which of those stories collapse under scrutiny, and how? What is being brought to bear to cause them to collapse, and is what’s driving that motivation itself substantial
Would you want to live in a country under Scientological Law? Or Odin’s Law? Does either proposition sound like a reasonable way to frame a civilised country’s legal and social system? No? So why does it make sense to run a country according to Christian or Muslim myths? They’re no less ridiculous, random and invented.
Let’s me spell this out: the problem isn’t with fundamentalist Islam or right-wing US Christians or huge churches run by ex-Hitler Youth members.
It’s with religion itself
Enshrining irrationality at the heart of our societies, validating myths and letting them define our human rights is an act of supreme idiocy. We all have the right to live, to love and pursue our dreams and no-one should be able to deprive us of those rights by waving a crumbling sheaf of lies in our faces.
He then goes on to present two stories of people be tortured and killed in the name of religion, and comments –
That news story is from June 2005. That’s what happens when people believe 2000-year-old superstitions to be literal truth.
Look at the Muslim terrorist attacks on Britain and America. Look at the God-steered response by Bush. That’s what happens when old men hear their God’s whispering in their ears.
If religion had its way, we’d all still be cowering in caves, blinking fearfully at the ghosts and goblins in the darkness.
We need to step forward into the light of reason, to embrace the hard truths of our mortality and unimportance rather than the comforting bedtime stories about gods and everlasting life.
That means we must oppose the irrational whoever promotes it and whatever colour their skin happens to be.
Ok, last night was the gig at Darbucka – big thankyous to all you blogsters who made it along to the gig.
Before we get to the gig, back a few hours – 11am and we were back rehearsing. Wednesday night’s rehearsal with Orphy was messed up by Rise disappearing, saying he’d be back by 8 and not turning up til gone 11. Helpful. Doug, Orphy and I ran through the songs, and it was clear that Orphy was going to do a fantastic job on this stuff, though like me it was a real test of his stamina having to play this stuff consistently for that amount of time!
Thursday morning’s rehearsal was better, in that Rise was there, so we got to go through all the songs. It was interesting for me in that each time we’d play a song, Rise would notice another bit that I’d missed out from the CD, so the parts were getting more and more complex, which made it even more of an enjoyable challenge. Orphy again acquitted himself fantastically.
In the afternoon, Rise and Doug headed off into town, planning to be back in time to run through the songs with Jez before we packed up to go to the gig. Jez arrives, but no sight of D and R. We give up on the idea of practicing and instead start to load the cars up with all my toys, Orphy’s kit, jez’s piano etc. Cars loaded, still no D and R. I write a note, so we can leave, and just as we’re getting into the cars, they show up. The tube system is screwed, so big delay getting back. Quick turn around and we head to the gig. Soundchecks go fine, with Simon Jaquet from Duncan Senyatso’s band sitting in on drums (Orphy was performing the two-gig-dash, playing at a jazz fest before heading down to get to us for the last set).
Right, jumping forward to the gig itself, it was a marvellous night ,and felt like a suitably eclectic tribute to John Peel. Calamateur gets better every time I hear him. An excellent set that kicked things off really well. We did two songs together at the end of the set, which were lovely (and we’re recording together all this weekend, building on the stuff we’ve already done, so expect an album some time in the next couple of years!)
next up was me – not having had much of a chance for practicing, I didn’t launch any new songs at this one, though I’d intended to do at least one. Instead, the only non-album tune was the one for Eric. Set went well, people were entertained, lots of good comments afterwards.
And then Rise’s set – started by two tunes just Rise Doug and Orphy which sounded lovely, Jez and I then joined in for 6 songs. Despite a couple of wobbles (largely due to Orphy’s kit moving on the stage, and me having to hold it in place with my foot!!), we sounded pretty good, by all accounts, and people really enjoyed it. Doug and Rise were thrown by people not getting up and dancing – which, not surprisingly is not something that Orphy Jez or I have ever really thought about, not ever playing dance music as such. I guess it’s a london thing, and also just a Darbucka thing – it’s a pretty chilled venue, and people were blissed out enjoying the sounds…
So all in, a good night – it would have been nice to get a load more people there (the numbers were OK, but for Rise’s set in particular, it would work really well it the place was packed and dancing), but as a first outing for a particular lineup it was a great way to play without pressure, and to just enjoy the music. I had a great time, remembered the lines, played well, and much fun was had.
There are some photos of the gig, posted by the lovely RichardH off the forum, here
eagle-eyed bloglings will notice that I’m actually standing up to play there… don’t expect this to become a regular occurrence.
I’ve gone on about this enough times that you don’t need me to say it all again… however, it’s really nice when other people say it in a slightly different way with better graphics – step forward, Jyoti Mishra – surely you’ve read things on Jyoti’s lovely blog before? If not, you’ve not been following the links from here very carefully – his is a fab blog. Anyway, his is also the only blog I read by someone who recorded a number one single in his bedroom. He’s in a good position to offer an analysis of the industry.
As a spoiler, he comes to the same conclusions as me – that artist to end user is the model of the future, with no intermediaries. You buying music direct from us (or us buying direct from you if you’re musicians as well!), us charging less but making more, you feeling some level of investment in the process and ongoing loveliness of the music, and us being vocally grateful for your patronage.
Have a read of his post – it’s pretty succinct (then go and have a listen to his last album ‘Peek and Poke’ – a marvellous slice of low-fi tune-heavy electro-pop. Retro in all the right ways.)
Right, now I’ve got a million and one jobs to do, so less blogging, more hoovering…
OK, I know I’ve just done one of these, and really it ought to be a month-end thing, but the search terms that have come up for the blog in the last two days are just mad –
1 2 8.70% armstrong
2 2 8.70% crepe crusader
3 2 8.70% strange things
4 1 4.35% bassworld
5 1 4.35% birthdays e-mails
6 1 4.35% do nothing til you hear from me
7 1 4.35% doug lunn
8 1 4.35% francis dunnery the brook southampton set list
9 1 4.35% jeff buckley french government
10 1 4.35% lindisfarne uk holy island
11 1 4.35% michael manring soliloquy 12
12 1 4.35% one quiet night preamp
13 1 4.35% raphaËl nadal photos
14 1 4.35% really cool myspace
15 1 4.35% ross noble interviews
16 1 4.35% steve the racist
17 1 4.35% things to do in december london
18 1 4.35% top banana with timmy mallett
19 1 4.35% video killed the radio star – a protest song
20 1 4.35% work is more fun than fun
Do I really need to highlight any of them in particular that are freaky, dear bloglings?? Good lord, there are some crazy mutants out there in webworld.
Here’s the top 20 search terms for the blog – not surprisingly, Eric was by far the most searched for query that lead people to the site. the others aren’t that exciting, though I love the idea of somebody being so bored that they’d search the internet for ‘strange things’. And for some reason ‘etymology of dude’ crops up every month in the list – how weird is that??
1 eric roche
2 steve lawson
3 tal wilkenfeld
4 brooklyn beckham
5 background images for myspace
6 myspace people
7 eric roche illness
8 love press ex-curio
9 strange things
10 joe perman
11 myspace background images
12 narcissim
13 amy kohn
14 bangla ringtone
15 bassworld
16 charlie peacock love press ex curio review
17 do nothing til you hear from me
18 etymology of dude
19 laws on piracy
20 link 182
…and here’s a handful of the more bizarre search strings that led to www.stevelawson.net over the last month – the mind boggles!
german chicken dance download
when did robbie williams play at la scala in london
steve lawson afc wimbledon
supergluing cuts
garmet sawing machine
guestbook northampton 2005
telephone number st columba s church johnstone terrace edinburgh
fingers vinegar callouses -leroy
e=mc2 mks
electric archlute
died from hiccups
dr fox hypothesis
finley quaye = kevin bacon
i like to go bowling with my friend bert mp3
houmus recipe
Picture nabbed from Jyoti’s blog.
Yup, that’s an old bloke – Walter Wolfgang, 82 years old, who came to England as a Jew persecuted under the Nazis. At the Labour Party conference, he was bodily thrown out for shouting ‘nonsense’ during Jack Straw’s (Jack Boot?) speech on Iraq.
So not only are the Govt still trying to defend the disaster in Iraq, they are throwing out old men for disagreeing – he wasn’t being threatening or rowdy, or winding up ready throw a fresh dog turd at Straw (oh, that he had!), he just disagreed. But no, under New Labour such things are not allowed. And what’s more, he was prevented from re-entering the hall under the new Anti-Terror Laws!! WTF?? Since when was ‘nonsense’ hate-speech, or incitement to blow shit up, or whatever?
Blair’s half-arsed apology this morning was an embarrassment – a pathetic attempt to shrug off common assault taking place in the name of his party stifling dissent.
This quote from the Guardian sums up the government’s response
Of course they refused – how could they applaud the exposing of a deeply flawed spin-machine-decision? They’d probably get thrown out of the cabinet.
in contrast, “Later, in his closing speech to conference, the defence secretary, John Reid, apologised to Mr Wolfgang with the prime minister applauding from the stage.” – that’s right, applaud the controlled written apology, worded to try and make light of the whole thing. But don’t join in with the rank and file plebs as they show support for an old man assaulted by hired goons.
How long are the labour party members going to put up with this?? The general public in Britain are on the whole way too apathetic to do anything about it on a national level, but those inside the Labour party who’ve seen their beloved institution stolen out from under them and replaced with some kind off hybrid ‘psuedo-compassionate Thatcherism’. It’s hideous, it’s tragic and it’s wrong.
The berk who man-handled Walter should be tried for assault, as should whoever decided on that as a policy. Wouldn’t it be great to have seen a mass walkout in protest? You bet your arse if it had happened in France that’s what they’d have done.
OK, here’s a meme for all y’all who blog out there –
If you were stuck on a desert island with an internet connection to only one blog, whose would it be?
Which is the blog that makes you laugh the most?
Which blog is most likely to make you cry?
Which blog is most likely to inspire you to part with cash for a CD/DVD?
Which blog is most likely to cause you to change your mind about an issue?
Which blog do you read first in the morning?
Of the blogs you read by people you don’t know, who would you most like to meet?
And here’s my answers –
1) – assuming that www.howtobuildboatsoutofsand.blogspot.com doesn’t exist, It’d probably be Liz’s – I’m sure if there was a decent curry house on the island, she’ll blog about it at some point, as well as somewhere to purchase stylish footwear should the opportunity arise.
2) – either Liz’s or Going Jesus.
3) – er, probably Sleepless In Sudan – which could also fit into the above category – equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking.
4) – Most likely Sid’s blog.
5) – Hugo’s blog – either him or his comments. Lots of great brain food there. There are a couple of others that teach me a lot – George Monbiot and Jyoti but I don’t often change my mind on an issue because of them, just discover an issue I wasn’t previously aware of.
6) assuming all the blogs I read have got new posts listed, it’s normally Gareth’s, knowing that we’ll be chatting about whatever we’ve both blogged about within about 5 minutes of me switching my computer on. Though, it may actually be the Shark, as she lives in NYC and thus blogs later than anyone else I read, so is more likely to have posted after I went to bed… And this was in no way influenced by her offence at not being mentioned in the rest of the list. Not at all.
7) Either Sara, Hugo or Jyoti – all very interesting peoples.
Right, there you go – now go answer them on your own blogs!
Soundtrack – Duke Ellington, ‘The Classic Tracks Of The 40s’ (featuring the legendary Jimmy Blanton on bass).